An Artist’s Personal Constitution, Pt. II
7 principles for cultivating creativity, simplicity, and inner calm
I first put language to the concept of Creative Responsibility a few years ago, in an effort to support the artist’s journey (my own and others’) toward untethered, egoless, honest-to-God creativity. And though I love abstraction both in art and in concept, to embody and enact Creativity Responsibility requires concerted effort — focused action.
A concept is only as good as its application, after all.
Action, though, requires direction. To move from side-to-side eliminates a feeling of stagnancy but doesn’t get you any closer to your destination, if your destination is forward. Thomas Merton said it nicely:
“People may spend their whole lives climbing the ladder of success only to find, once they reach the top, that the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall.”
It’s imperative, then, for the artist to begin with the end in mind. Or, at the very least, to know what ‘success’ means, individually, separate from all preconceived notions — cultural, societal, and parental norms. It helps to have a North Star, as it’s much better to know where you want to go than to know how to get there. The steps usually reveal themselves along the way, as a byproduct of your taking action.
So, around the same time that I began to muse over Creative Responsibility, I developed a Personal Constitution — guiding principles against which I weigh my thought life, my speech, my behavior, my daily habits.
At that time, my idea of ‘success’ looked different than it does now, as I’ve settled into a less materialistic, more peaceful, free-flowing version of my former self. In writing my original Constitution, I anticipated evolution and prepared accordingly; the final principle reads:
“Stay adaptable. Come back to this and make changes as necessary. You are water, not a brick wall. Trust your growth.”
Creative Responsibility is still the name of my game — it holds steady as my life’s North Star, guiding my decisions as an artist, woman, sister, daughter, friend — but the direction in which I go has evolved. Expanded. I’ve mapped more of my grid, and those unchartered territories are now further away from home, begging to be known.
Though I don’t necessarily commit to resolutions for the New Year, I do like to audit my current systems and make updates to support continued evolution. For ultimate, empowered, transcendent creation, I know that I cannot become complacent, for complacency is as destructive to the artist as is distraction. (Both are ploys of Resistance, à la Steven Pressfield.)
The below are working amendments to my Personal Constitution. I’ve been chewing these over for the last month or so, editing as I go (note to self: be open to further edits, always), and I think you’ll find them helpful, too, especially if you resonated with any of the first 10.
As I am of the belief that there is no one right way to be an artist (or human, for that matter — for rarely is anything truly black and white), let these inspire you to write guidelines for yourself, in alignment with your own North Star.
- Simplify your life.
Streamline your systems, delete those unused apps, clean out your closet, organize your inbox, define a morning routine that actually works (and stop doing the things that don’t). Growing up, my mom always told me, “less is more,” and of course, her sentiment is only more true the older I get. Life itself will prove complicated enough; at least eliminate the obstacles and calm the chaos that you do have control over.
2. Speaking of systems: Use them.
To be an artist today, committed to your craft whatever your craft, is actually quite a challenge. Although artists of every time period faced unique challenges, it’s our generation that has had to balance novel tools like social media and digital marketing, influencing and content distribution. (Not to mention, engineering or parenting or teaching or podcasting or however else we spend the rest of our days in our modern world.) It’s important to create and leverage the systems we implement; yours might include any combination of spreadsheets, apps, a team of accountants, paper notebooks, notifications, “Do Not Disturb” mode on all your devices, shared family calendars, etc., etc.
Once your systems are in place, trust them. If you’re using Google Calendar notifications and Google Tasks for list-making, for example, you don’t need to also write those same to-dos on sticky notes and paste them all over your work space. You’re creating more anxiety for yourself in doing so by perpetuating background stress. Continue to play with and refine your systems as necessary.
Uphold a schedule for yourself, and commit to it like your job depends on it. If you block time on your calendar for studio work, or a bubble bath, or to finally call your mom back, do it. That part is key, by the way. I know that schedules themselves have very little sex appeal, but people that have and use them tend to have a lot. Like, you’re an artist and you have a lil’ life structure?! Meow.
3. Do deliberately (but reasonably) hard things.
Just as you create time for self-care (and please start, if you don’t already!), carve time into your calendar for just plain tough stuff. Maybe you start training for a half-marathon or you cold plunge once a week, which I cannot recommend more highly. (I’ll write more on cold plunging later, but it’s shown to activate the Vagus nerve, which helps to calm the parasympathetic nervous system, therefore reducing anxiety and depression, to start.)
While I’m plunging in 3-minute sprints, the water set to about 45-degrees Fahrenheit, I repeat this simple mantra to myself, slowly and with intention:“I can do hard things.”
As I rewire my subconscious mind with this particular autosuggestion, the experience of being in achingly cold water reinforces this as undeniable truth. I always come out of a session with greater clarity, focus, and energy — and the difficult things about the rest of my day don’t feel so impossible. For more on cold exposure (don’t just take my word for it!), check out this newsletter by Dr. Andrew Huberman of Huberman Lab.
Or, if cold-water immersion is not your thing and I cannot convince you otherwise, maybe you sign up for a speaking class at your nearest community college even though public speaking is your biggest fear. Doing difficult things, proactively, increases your capacity for growth and builds within you a resilience that doesn’t otherwise just happen. Those who seek comfort and convenience and avoid growth through suffering stifle their potential, especially in the long run.
Build resilience within yourself, so that whenever things get especially tough (or it feels like they just don’t. stop. being tough), you’ll have a stronger infrastructure to bear it, and can maybe even find the beauty in those seasons of distress or heartbreak.
Most of us, artists especially, would happily take a little more energetic capacity and a little less anxiety, right?
4. Speaking of suffering: We can alleviate just a little bit of it through meditation, reflection, and mindfulness. Practice awareness.
Satori is a Japanese and Zen Buddhist word which means growth through insight or “awakening; comprehension; understanding.” Unlike growth through pain, this kind of growth happens proactively — a product of the time and energy we’ve invested into our personal and spiritual development.
I know that many artists — and people — like to suffer, and at one time, I was one of them. Not anymore. I’d rather choose growth, where I can, than to have it forced on me through pain.
5. Rely less on external data to determine your state of being. Instead, pursue intrinsic, embodied feedback from your inner self. Focus on how you feel.
Do you only know that you got a good night’s sleep because your Apple Watch says so? Are you only hungry because the clock says it’s 6pm — time for dinner?
We have become very disembodied as a society, and its hurting our ability to create with originality, separate from the ego. As artists, we are channels for the transcendent — vehicles for Universal Intelligence to paint; write; speak; preach through us. To be disconnected from the self, this body that carries us, is to shut off the faucet from which (capital c) Creativity comes.
Don’t forget that you are an organic being, a fruit of the earth in human form. If Gaia herself feeds on the sun, so must we. I’ll save the rest of my esoteric monologuing here for another post, but for now, just trust your author. I have only good intentions for you.
6. Speaking of the sun: Get some. Seriously!
Experts recommend at least 20 minutes a day of unfiltered, non-SPF-blocked sun. Just sun ’n’ skin, baby. Twenty minutes of it at any time of the day is better than none, but there is substantial research on the benefit of getting sunlight into your eyes within the first few minutes of waking. In one study, office workers who sought morning sunlight for 5 days could make decisions with greater ease and scored 79% higher on cognitive tests.
Since the sun rises differently across the world and between seasons, here’s a little hack for you: Set your alarm for 15 minutes before your location’s sunrise, and adjust that waking time throughout the year. I love a 5am wake-up in July, when the sun begins to breach, but I do not love a 5am wake-up in January, when the sun doesn’t show face for another few hours.
Finally, a quick note here: Although supplements can be very beneficial, vitamin D from the sun itself is healing, inimitable in pill form. It’s good for the circadian rhythm, and I don’t even have to tell you it’s good for the soul. (Any more than 20 minutes, though, and you might consider applying SPF, per standard guidelines.)
When the internet says to “log off and touch grass,” do it. And don’t forget to catch some sun while you’re at it.
7. Relax. If not for your sanity, do it for your art.
Have you ever seen an early painting of Pablo Picasso’s? From ages 9 to 19 or so? Holy s**t, they are phenomenal. It’s unbearable!
But those are not the paintings for which we know Picasso. We know him for his later works, the ones we might consider “ugly.” Those are my favorite, too, as beautiful as the earlier works are. It’s because they’re so much more than “beautiful” — they are like nothing we’d seen before, a fresh perspective on the way humans experience life, themselves, and others. The later works feel like an addition to the greater whole of humanity’s expanse, another piece of the puzzle, more so than they feel beautiful.
And that’s an important part of being an artist.
Some of us are called to make things beautiful; it’s imperative that we do. Humans need beauty, to be surrounded by it and to enjoy it. And others of us (and of course, many overlapped between the two!), need to make things that show us a new side of life — and usually that includes things that are just not that beautiful, at least in a conventional sense. I think this is why we often like playful, childlike, or “ugly” art. Ugly, but fresh. So try not to worry about being so perfect with your work. Be delicate, if you’d like, but do not be precious. We need your perspective on this whole human thing — the good, the bad, and (please give us more of) the ugly.
Hi 👋 I’m Sophie, a Chicago-based artist, writer, and digital marketer.
Subscribe to my list for more on Creative Responsibility, or shoot me an email if you’d like to get in touch: sophie@sturdevantcreative.com.
